WHO marks safety week to address road deaths

Awareness campaign highlights dangers of speed and encourages action

The World Health Organization (WHO) will again be promoting a week-long initiative to promote road safety around the world

The fourth UN Global Road Safety Week will be staged May 8-14 in 2017, and will focus on slowing drivers down, while speeding up implementations of initiatives to reduce speed and prevent road deaths and injuries.

Visitors are encouraged to visit www.unroadsafetyweek.org to get more information, messages and materials related to managing speed. Further. a social media campaign around the message #SlowDown seeks to increase understanding about the dangers of speeding, and also to promote action on measures to address what is widely considered a major cause of death and injury.

Site visitors will also be asked to take the pledge to #SlowDown, as the WHO works toward attaining the goals it set out for various facets of daily life.

In September 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development, which they claim would result in ending extreme poverty, inequality and climate change, among others, by 2030. One of those goals was a Health Goal to halve the number of global deaths and injuries suffered on the world’s roads.

The last UN Global Road Safety Week (two years ago) addressed the epidemic of children’s deaths on the roads. The WHO estimates that over 186,000 children die on the world’s roadways every year — an average of 500 every day. Using the social message #SaveKidsLives, the organization managed to obtain more than 1 million signatures on the Child Declaration for Road Safety, calling on decision makers around the world to act on making roads safe for children.

The WHO is encouraging governments in all jurisdictions, international agencies, civil society organizations, foundations, private companies, and the public at large to plan and host events marking UN Global Road Safety Week.